"A daughter born to my wife in wedlock is my daughter. If I claim her, what answer is there?"
"I can prove that she's not your daughter."
"Perhaps; and what an edifying sight! The Premier proving——" Mr. Benham broke off with a laugh that sounded loud and harsh in the silent night air.
Medland ground his heel into the gravel.
"How it will please your Methodist friends, and the swells at Government House! You can tell 'em all about that trip to Meadow Beach under the name of—what was it?—Christie, wasn't it? And about your night-flitting, and——"
"Hold your tongue."
"Oh, there's no one to hear now. You won't like proving all that, will you? No, no, the girl will come to her loving father! Take a minute to think it over, Medland—take just a minute. An Inspectorship's no great matter to a politician, you know. You're not so mighty pure as all that! Take a minute. I can wait," and he flung himself on to a bench and lit a cheroot.
Then, in Digby Square, at two o'clock in the morning, the devil tempted "Jimmy" Medland. The man had indeed hit him close—very close. He had hit him in the love he bore his daughter, and in the love he bore her mother and her mother's fame. He had hit him in his love of place and power, and his nobler joy in using them for what seemed to him good purposes. Love and tenderness—pride and ambition—the man shot his arrow at all. And as Medland stood motionless in thought, across these abiding reflections came now and again a new one—the image of a face that had been that night upturned to his almost in worship, and would, if this thing were done, be turned away in sorrow, shame, and scorn.
What, after all, was an Inspectorship? It was only doing what the world said all politicians did.